UK has the world's fastest mobile broadband connections - report

The UK has the fastest mobile broadband connections in the world, according to a new report.

Akamai’s State of the Internet report looks at broadband adoption and connection speeds in the first three months of 2015.

It found the UK’s average mobile connection speed of 20.4Mbps to be the fastest of 62 countries that qualified for inclusion in its mobile section. It also marks a 28% increase in speed from the previous quarter.

Denmark was in second place with 10Mbps – less than half the UK’s average speed. Vietnam had the lowest average connection speed at 1.3Mbps.

Akamai also measured average peak mobile connection speeds and found a broad range of speeds.

Australia, with 149.3Mbps, had the fastest average peak speed and was one of four countries with average peak speeds over 100Mbps. Japan, Singapore and Thailand were the others.

The lowest average peak speed was 8.2Mbps, recorded in Indonesia.

Denmark had the highest mobile broadband take up rate, with 98% of unique IP addresses connecting to Akamai from mobile network providers.

'Higher standards'

The UK was fifth on the list with 95% adoption. Vietnam, Iran, Kazakhstan and Bolivia all had rates below 1%.

The report’s editor, David Belson, said: “We saw generally positive results across all of the key metrics during the first quarter of 2015.

“While connectivity will continue to differ across many regions, we see the highest broadband speeds in countries/regions with high population densities and strong government backing or support, as well as those that foster competition among internet providers.”

In terms of fixed broadband, the global average connection speed reached 5Mbps for the first time.

Average connection speeds for the top 10 countries remained well above 10Mbps.

South Korea led the way with an average speed of 23.6Mbps. Ireland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Hong Kong and Japan also recorded average speeds above 15Mbps.

Globally, a total of 131 qualifying regions saw average connection speeds increase in the first quarter, with growth rates ranging from 128% in Fiji (6.2 Mbps) to a modest 0.4% in Japan (15.2 Mbps).